Breadcrumb

Robert Calvi

Having worked his way up through Banco Ambrosiano, he became its chairman in 1975. A Bank of Italy report in 1978 found that Ambrosiano had illegally exported several billion lire; Calvi was arrested, tried, and convicted in 1981. In 1982, on the brink of financial collapse, Ambrosiano was salvaged temporarily with letters of patronage from the Vatican bank, which itself had been involved with Ambrosiano in several shady deals. When Calvi's body was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London, and a suicide verdict subsequently overturned, rumors of Mafia influence on Italian banking and the Vatican resumed.